A comparation of dexmedetomidine and midazolam for sedation in patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Jiaxuan Wen; Xueying Ding; Chen Liu; Wenyu Jiang; Yingrui Xu; Xiuhong Wei; Xin Liu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0294292

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 26, 2023
11 Oct 2023 Decision Letter - Ioannis Savvas, Editor PONE-D-23-16182A comparation of dexmedetomidine and midazolam for sedation in patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU: a systematic review and meta-analysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Liu, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 25 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Note from Emily Chenette, Editor in Chief of PLOS ONE, and Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Director of Open Research Solutions at PLOS: Did you know that depositing data in a repository is associated with up to a 25% citation advantage (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416)? If you’ve not already done so, consider depositing your raw data in a repository to ensure your work is read, appreciated and cited by the largest possible audience. You’ll also earn an Accessible Data icon on your published paper if you deposit your data in any participating repository (https://plos.org/open-science/open-data/#accessible-data). 3. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors conducted a research study titled "A Comparison of Dexmedetomidine and Midazolam for Sedation in Patients with Mechanical Ventilation in ICU: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis." This study addresses a critical clinical issue, and the authors have executed a well-organized and meticulously designed systematic review and meta-analysis. However, there are a few comments that need to be addressed: Q1: The study's cutoff date was October 18th, 2022. The authors should consider performing an update of their research in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Q2: The exclusion criteria stating "Publications without an outcome of interest" may not be considered a valid exclusion criterion, as per the Cochrane Handbook of Intervention. The sentence should be revised to align with established criteria, such as those mentioned in the question. Q3: In Table 1, the measurement unit for age should be included for clarity. Q4: In Figure 1, it is advisable to provide reasons for not retrieving the two reports during the screening process. Additionally, the exclusion of 46 papers after full-text assessment raises questions. It's essential to clarify how these papers, including 22 publications that are review/meta-analyses and 15 unrelated to the research question or were animal experiments, were not excluded during title/abstract screening. Q5: If the Forest plot is generated using RevMan, it is suggested to add labels for both groups rather than using generic "experiment/control" labels, as this can be unclear and less straightforward. Q6: Furthermore, it is recommended to add labels for each group in the Forest plot for better clarity and understanding. Reviewer #2: The paper is well written and complete. The topic is interesting and methods are accurate. I have only a suggestion: Abstract: lenght of stay in ICU should be added in the results because it is reported in the conclusions. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Cho-Hao, Lee Reviewer #2: Yes: Angela Amigoni ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Comment .docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294292.r001
Revision 1
17 Oct 2023 Author Response October 17, 2023 Response for manuscript PONE-D-23-16182 “A comparation of dexmedetomidine and midazolam for sedation in patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU: a systematic review and meta-analysis” Dear Editors: Thank you for providing us with such a great opportunity to submit a revised version of our manuscript. We appreciate your warm help with our manuscript. Meanwhile, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all reviewers for their detailed and constructive comments on our manuscript. According to those helpful suggestions, we have revised the manuscript to make our results convincing. Revised portions are marked in red on the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responses to the reviewers' comments are as follows. At the same time, we ensure that the manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements. The first author's ORCID ID is 0000-0002-5625-7134, and the corresponding author's ORCID ID is 0009-0009-9798-407X. we have checked all the references to ensure that they are complete and correct. Thank you again for your time and help to our manuscript. We hope you will be satisfied with the revised version and look forward to hearing from you. Your sincerely, Corresponding author Xin Liu Encl. Responses to the comments from Reviewer 1 and 2. Reply to Reviewer #1 Dear Reviewer, Thank you very much for your time spent in reviewing our manuscript and for your encouraging comments on its merits. After careful consideration, we have further revised the article. We hope that you will be more satisfied with the revised version. Comments 1: The study's cutoff date was October 18th, 2022. The authors should consider performing an update of their research in accordance with PRISMA guidelines.” Response 1: Thank you very much for your affirmation of this article. Following the guidance of the PRISMA guidelines, we conducted an electronic search for recent trials to perform an update of our research. [Relative revision can be found in the Materials and Methods part, line 73-78] Comments 2: The exclusion criteria stating "Publications without an outcome of interest" may not be considered a valid exclusion criterion, as per the Cochrane Handbook of Intervention. The sentence should be revised to align with established criteria, such as those mentioned in the question. Response 2: Your suggestions really mean a lot to us. we have revised our eligibility criteria under the guidance of the Cochrane Handbook of Intervention. Thank you very much. [Relative revision can be found in the Materials and Methods part, line 84-86] Comments3: In Table 1, the measurement unit for age should be included for clarity. Response 3: Thanks for your valuable comments. We have added the measurement unit for age in Table 1. [Relative revision can be found in Table 1]. Comments 4: In Figure 1, it is advisable to provide reasons for not retrieving the two reports during the screening process. Additionally, the exclusion of 46 papers after full-text assessment raises questions. It's essential to clarify how these papers, including 22 publications that are review/meta-analyses and 15 unrelated to the research question or were animal experiments, were not excluded during title/abstract screening. Response 4: Thanks for your valuable comments. We used Endnote X9 software to remove duplicate reports. Two of the duplicate reports were not automatically deleted. When we retrieved full papers, we found these two records and removed them. After discussion, we believed that we had caused a misunderstanding, these two reports should be excluded after the records screening stage. I am ashamed that I did not catch the mistake in time. In order to improve recall ratio, we screened the references mentioned in meta-analyses and any other papers that may be relevant to our study. These articles were gotten the full text and read carefully. This led the author of the flow chart to mistakenly include these articles in the full-text assessment. According to the latest electronic search results, we have carefully revised the flow chart. [Relative revision can be found in Results part, line 131-136 and Figure 1] Comments 5: If the Forest plot is generated using RevMan, it is suggested to add labels for both groups rather than using generic "experiment/control" labels, as this can be unclear and less straightforward. Response 5: Thanks for your good advice. We added the label for both groups using RevMan. [Relative revision can be found in Results part, Figure 2] Comments 6: Furthermore, it is recommended to add labels for each group in the Forest plot for better clarity and understanding. Response 6: Thanks for your valuable comments. We have added labels for each group and optimized each group of figures for better clarity and understanding. [Relative revision can be found in Results part, Figure 2-4] Thank you very much for your affirmation and suggestions on this article. We hope the revised version will make you even more satisfied. If there is anything that needs to be modified, please do not hesitate to point it out. We are more than happy to make any further changes that improve the article. Sincerely, Corresponding author Xin Liu Reply to Reviewer #2 Dear Reviewer, Thank you very much for your time spent in reviewing our manuscript and for your encouraging comments on its merits. After careful consideration, we have further revised the article. We hope that you will be more satisfied with the revised version. Comments: Abstract: length of stay in ICU should be added in the results because it is reported in the conclusions. Response: We have added the information in the manuscript. We hope you will find this revised version more satisfactory. We are more than happy to make any further changes that will improve the article and facilitate successful publication. [Relative revision can be found in the abstract part, line 28-34] Sincerely, Corresponding author Xin Liu Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294292.r002
30 Oct 2023 Decision Letter - Ioannis Savvas, Editor A comparation of dexmedetomidine and midazolam for sedation in patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU: a systematic review and meta-analysis PONE-D-23-16182R1 Dear Dr. Liu, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Ioannis Savvas, DVM, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors has responded to all my questions, this is a well-organized research. The quality is enough to be published Reviewer #2: I don't have further comments to add. All the input have been followed. This is a well written paper. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Cho-Hao, Lee Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294292.r003
Formally Accepted
3 Nov 2023 Acceptance Letter - Ioannis Savvas, Editor PONE-D-23-16182R1 A comparation of dexmedetomidine and midazolam for sedation in patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU: a systematic review and meta-analysis Dear Dr. Liu: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Prof. Ioannis Savvas Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294292.r004

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